Guard service along the Seversky Donets. About guard, stanitsa and field service in the Polish Ukraine of the Moscow state, before Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich

GUARD AND STATION SERVICE

border system security and intelligence to the south. and southeast borders of Russia to prevent sudden attacks by the Crimean Tatars. Cossack villages and guards were sent outside the abatis. The village was a cavalry detachment sent far into the steppe, the watchman was a small cavalry post that served somewhat ahead of the abatis line. Slender organization of S. and S. With. received only from the 70s. 16th century Border reorganization The service was conducted by the governor, Prince. M.I. Vorotynsky, appointed its chief. In 1571, with the participation of service people called from the south. cities, the charter of S. and village was prepared. With. According to the charter, the watchmen consisted of 4-10 people, the village - of 60-100 people. They were expelled from the border. cities and served since April 1. before snow falls, changing periodically. The villages, in addition to patrolling, were charged with the duty of fighting to detain small detachments of the enemy and promptly report the approach of large forces. For carrying S. and s. With. Cossacks, boyar children and other service people were involved. In con. 17th century S. and s. s., with the elimination of the threat of attacks by the Crimean Tatars, lost its significance, and was later liquidated.

Lit.: Margolin S.V., Defense Rus. state from Tat. raids in horse XVI century, in the book: Military History. collection, M., 1948 (Tr. State Historical Museum, v. 20); Chernov A.V., Arm. Russian forces states in the XV-XVII centuries, M., 1954.

V. S. Bakulin. Moscow.

Soviet historical encyclopedia. - M.: Soviet Encyclopedia. Ed. E. M. Zhukova. 1973-1982 .

See what “GUARD AND STATION SERVICE” is in other dictionaries:

A border guard and reconnaissance system on the southern and southeastern borders of Russia to prevent sudden attacks by the Crimean Tatars. Cossack villages and guards were sent beyond the abatis lines. The village is a cavalry detachment sent far into the steppe, watchmen... ... Russian history

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Service people- a group of us, obliged to bear state, military and administrative duties. services. Divided into S.L. in the fatherland (boyars, okolnichy, Duma nobles, Duma clerks, stewards, solicitors, Muscovite and elected nobles, boyar children) and S.L. according to instrument (streltsy, gunners, ... ... Ural Historical Encyclopedia

In pre-Petrine times, small posts (4 8 people) were posted in front of the guard line towards the Crimean side. They were divided into near and far (messages sometimes 50-60 centuries from the city), replaceable and permanent. S.’s deportation began with the opening of spring (approx... Encyclopedic Dictionary F.A. Brockhaus and I.A. Efron

Books

• On the steppe border. Defense of the “Crimean Ukraine” of the Russian state in the first half of the 16th century, Kargalov V.V., In 1480, the Horde yoke was overthrown, but the struggle of the Russian people with the Mongol-Tatar conquerors did not end. For two centuries, the Russian (Russian) state led almost... Category: Non-fiction Series: Academy of Basic Research: History Publisher: Editorial URSS,
• On the steppe border, V.V. Kargalov, In 1480, the Horde yoke was overthrown, but the struggle of the Russian people with the Mongol-Tatar conquerors did not end. For two centuries, the Russian (Russian) state led almost... Category:

About the Cossacks of Seversk, Oskol, Donetsk, Komaritsa and others. In the framework of this short article, we will include in the concept of “Seversk Cossacks” all possible groups of Cossacks of the territory of the Seversk land, recorded in historical sources in the waters of the Dnieper basin: Oskol, Donetsk, Putivl, Rylsk, Komaritsky and others. The “Northern Cossacks” can be divided into two specific formations: free and service. We will try to briefly present both of these communities in different local guises in this article. So, among other things, in 1549, the Nogai prince Yusuf wrote to Ivan the Terrible about the attacks on the Don on the Nogais carried out by stellate sturgeon. There is a doubt that the Seversk Cossacks had some kind of unified ethnic nature (if there was such a thing at all in the 16th-17th centuries). The free Cossacks of the Seversk land, especially Donetsk and Oskol, were bands of the southern Russian militarized population, probably partially connected with the remnants of the ancient “north” and were an alternative branch of the Cossacks as such. Sometimes it was not connected with any serious relations, for example, with the Don Cossacks - there were only isolated migrations of stellate sturgeons to the Don. At the very least, it is unlikely that this has acquired any mass character; most likely the stellate sturgeon were more active “on the ground”, on the territory of the Severshchina. So, among other things, in 1549, the Nogai prince Yusuf wrote to Ivan the Terrible about the attacks on the Don on the Nogais carried out by stellate sturgeon. It is possible that the Seversky Cossacks and small groups of Tatars will fall into the environment. It is likely that the Seversk Cossacks were replenished by Don Cossacks and Cherkassy - but to what extent is difficult to judge. We will not dwell closely on this topic and will leave it for introduction into circulation by new researchers. “... having the pleasure of living with Putivl and being servants with their wives...” One of the initial pages of the chronicle of the Seversky Cossacks, in our opinion, should be considered the episode of recruiting the so-called Azov Cossacks into the service by Moscow Prince Vasily III, who were settled near Putivl “...with their wives, they decided to live near Putivl and be servants...”. This happened, apparently, between 1515 and 1520. According to the assumption of the famous researcher of the Don Cossacks E.P. Savelyev, it was these Putivl Cossacks who gave the basis for the service contingent of the guard and stanitsa service in this corner of the Seversk land, securing the name “Sevryuks”. Here E.P. Savelyev makes an obvious mistake, giving his reasoning the color of some kind of historical romance. In our opinion, it is absolutely impossible to identify the former Azov natives with the Stellate Sturgeon and here’s why. As is known, in the instructions of 1571, compiled by Prince M.I. Vorotynsky together with the guard Cossacks and villagers, who knew their areas of the Wild Field perfectly well, a regulation was established on the removal from service of the Putivl sturgeons, who served not from estates, but for hire and poorly performing their duties. A.G. Slyusarsky believed that the peculiarity of the unpreparedness of the stellate sturgeon for guard duty was that the main means of subsistence of this group of the Severshchina population was precisely the fishing economy, which dominated military affairs. The last statement, which certainly has a real basis, goes a little against the fact that the Sevryuks were undoubtedly a border community, where knowledge of the basics of military affairs was a prerequisite for their existence and survival during the time of “incessant” Tatar “arrivals”. In fact, it would be more correct to note that the stellate sturgeon skillfully combined fishing and economic activity with knowledge of military affairs, with the prevailing role of the former. Returning to the opinion of E.P. Savelyev, we emphasize that the historian of the Don Cossacks was certainly right that the Azov people formed a certain backbone for the guard Cossacks and village residents of Putivl. The Nikon Chronicle reports that the Novgorod-Seversky principality was inhabited by the so-called Seversky or Ukrainian Cossacks, called “Sevryuks,” who were found in many cities, such as: Novgorod-Seversky, Chernigov, Starodub, Rylsk, Putivl, etc. Let’s talk more about this - less detailed. Information about the Cossacks in Rylsk begins to actively “flicker” in historical reports starting from the 1530s. The first person from among the Rylsk Cossacks was Ivan Kokhonin, noted in the charter of Grand Duke Vasily III in Karachev: “our governor wrote to me from Novagorodok and Seversky..., and our governor Vasily Sergeev wrote to him from Rylsk: he came to him from the field of Rylsk Cossack Ivan Kokhonin with his comrade, and brought with him his wife Polonyanka Karachevsky full ... ". That is, even then the guard and stanitsa services in Rylsky (as well as in neighboring Putivlsky) districts acquired an active stage of their existence. So, for example, in 1522, the Russian ambassador Tretyak Gubin reported in his report about two Putivl Cossacks - Fedka and Uvar, who went on guard duty to the Vorskla River. In 1541, Prince Ivan Fedorovich Belsky, concerned about the next activity of the Tatars in the southern Russian steppes, sent a messenger from the capital to Putivl. The governor of this city, Fyodor Pleshcheev, was entrusted with sending a stanitsa patrol to the steppe under the leadership of Gavrila Tolmach. The task of the village detachment was reconnaissance in the steppe, monitoring the Tatars and identifying their numbers. Tolmach's village discovered the Tatars on the Seversky Donets River, after which Gavrila himself had to hastily ride with the news through Rylsk to Moscow. A little later, the news about the Tatars was brought to Moscow by another village resident, Alexey Kutukov. The fears of the Moscow authorities were not in vain: in March 1542, a large Tatar detachment of Tsarevich Amin was already destroying the outskirts of Putivl. V.P. Zagorovsky believes that the stanitsa service in the Putivl district (as well as in Rylsky) acquired regular features in 1550-51, 20 years before its all-Russian establishment. At this time, the situation on the southern borders of Muscovy was most tense - Ivan the Terrible personally went with his regiments to the “coastline” - near Ryazan and Kolomna. In 1555, the village of Lavrentiy Koltovsky tracked down the Tatars on the Obyshkin transport through the Seversky Donets. The messenger Bogdan Nikiforov was immediately sent to Putivl and Moscow with the village leader Shemyatka (a guide, an expert on the area who was stationed at the village). L. Koltovsky’s reply stated that about twenty thousand Tatars were crossing the stile. City Cossacks were also in service in Starodub - another city in the Severshchina, then still in Moscow - we will touch on this period superficially. The replenishment of the staff of the Starodub Cossacks came from volunteers - free, willing people, apparently not always “from the locals”. So, for example, among the immigrants in 1632 from the Lithuanian Starodub to Sevsk - Cossacks, Sevryuks, arable peasants and gunners, the lists included Cossacks under the geographical nicknames Pskovitin and Kozlitin - Borka Pskovitin and Pavlik Pskovitin. Unfortunately, we have extremely limited sources on the personnel of the Starodub Cossacks of Moscow Starodub. A small exception are the questioning speeches of the archers, Cossacks, nobles, children of the boyars, gunners, and Starodub Seversky’s fighters, compiled on the occasion of the alleged relations of servicemen with Lithuanian people. These lists contain the following surnames: Chemesov, Podlinev, Sedelnikov, Serkov (later a well-known Cossack white-local surname in Karachev), Boyarkin, Roev, Shipov, Osavtsov, Rozhnov, Lomakin, Poteryaishin, Nakhodkin, Ostroglyadov(ets), Lashin. Almost all of the above names are found in the cities to which the military people of Starodub were resettled after it was abandoned to Poland. Let's talk briefly about recruiting willing people into the service. In the decree of 1589 from Tsar Fyodor Ivanovich, head Afanasy Fedorovich Zinoviev was instructed to gather for service in Putivl the children of the boyars, archers, gunners, zatinshchiki, Cherkassy, ​​verstanny and so-called “hunting” Cossacks. Zinoviev was ordered to distribute salaries to servicemen and newly recruited people and to march on the Seversky Donets and Oskol rivers against the Belgorod Tatars and Cherkasy. The military men were brought to the gathering place from Chernigov, Rylsk and Starodub. The Putivl heads - Ivan Kireev and Yuri Bezzubtsev were supposed to take away 102 people of the "hot Cossacks", in Rylsk Ivan Nikolnikov and Yan Bobrovsky - 50, in Starodub Fyodor Shchegolev and Yakush Lysy - 125 people. The salary of the Seversky willing Cossacks was “two rubles each”; new servicemen were required to report for duty “like two horses or two geldings.” However, neither in Putivl nor in Rylsk the heads were able to take away a single person; the old man Fyodor Shchegolev turned out to be more successful and brought only five willing Cossacks, and even those “one horse each.” As the decree further reports, initially in Starodub Shchegolev gathered 25 free people, but the money determined as a salary for the Cossacks was “expropriated” by a certain Pyotr Sovin. True, then these funds were nevertheless sent to Putivl to “collect” the willing Cossacks - “... the money was ordered... to be sent to Putivl and with that money it was ordered to collect the willing Cossacks, as many as possible, not according to the decree, how many were ordered to be collected, according to looking at the money. And the salary was ordered to be given to three rubles per person, and those Cossacks would have about two horses or two geldings, but in captivity they had two or three horses.” A similar situation, but a little more successful, was repeated in 1632 during the Smolensk War - Ivan Eropkin was tasked with tidying up in the northern cities of Rylsk, Sevsk with the Komaritskaya volost and Putivl the willing “all sorts of unwritten people” with arquebuses numbering 500 people into Cossacks with an appointed sovereign salary 4 rubles a year, plus potion and lead. Non-literate people meant non-tax workers, non-servants and non-serfs. For this purpose, nobles and clerks were sent to the designated cities, so that the local governors would release everyone. Of course, it was not possible to fully staff the staff of willing Cossacks: “both the Seversky, sir, cities, and the Kamaritsky volost of willing people did not write into the Cossacks and did not tidy up the service.” In the Rank Books of 1618, in the garrison of the city of Rylsk, according to estimates, there were 100 Starodub Cossacks, along with 117 boyar children, 26 gunners and fighters, 200 archers. These are the service people who were resettled after the Deulin truce to other Seversk cities. After the construction of the Sevsky fort in the Komaritsa volost in 1620, some of the military men of Starodub were brought there. The Cossacks of Trubchevsk distinguished themselves in the campaign against the army of False Dmitry I and the Poles in the fall of 1604 near Novgorod-Seversky. They, numbering 74 people, were given the sovereign's salary: “according to the cloth, four arshins of cloth and two rubles of money per person.” So the salary received: Sotsky Efremka Kisly, Pentecostal Strashka Kozintsov, Yakimka Yakovlev, Yakushka Netrekhov, Ofonka Bocharov, Ignatka Okatov, Ofonka Yurakov, Loginka Markov, Ivashka Golovachov, Ileyka Lyakhov, Mishka Demidov, Ivashka Yakovlev, Lukyanka Ontipin, Aniska Fedorov, Ovdyushka Ignatov , Fedoska Grigoriev, foreman Ivashka Samoilov, Ovdokimko Ivanov, Savka Mikulin, Troshka Ivanov, Kireyka Mikulin, Vaska Pakhomov, Zhadenka Ivanov, Vaska Ortemov, Zhdanka Ivanov, Vaska Ilyin, Grishka Davydov, Minka Ivanov, Gavrilka Ogafonov, Ivashka Yankov, Meleshka Yakovlev, Levka Fedorov, Deniska Ovdeev, Pakhomka Fedorov, Timoshka Fedorov, foreman Ivashka Skomorokhov, Ostapka Ivanov, Vaska Ivanov, Gorasimka, Ondreev, Ivashka Fedorov, Anikonka Yakovlev, Mitka Maximov, Ondryushka Golobushin, foreman Danilka Fedorov, Ostapka Krokhin, Mikiforka Grigoriev, Tereshka Levonov , Senka Omelyanov, Vaska Ilyin, Savka Gavrilov, Oleshka Shepkoval, Ivashka Ovdeev, Ondryushka Shipukha, Ivashka Ondreev, Ivashka Ivanov, Boriska Fedorov, Ivashka Letyagin, Vaska Yakovlev, Maximka Naumov, Ontoshka Gridyaev, foreman Yakushka Eremeev, Grishka Smiryakin, Ivashka Ershov , Vaska Borisov, Ondryushka Petrov, Ondryushka Gonchar, Shestachka Usotsky, Simashka Makarov, foreman Volodka Ivanov, Loginka Ivanov, Stepanka Gridin, Kuzemka Frolov, Stepanka Ontonov, Oleshka Khrenov. There is no data on the number or origin of the Trubchev Cossacks of the early 17th century. In the same campaign, 76 Cossacks from the city of Novgorod-Seversky, led by the Pentecostal Grisha Kostin, took part, such as: Tishka Putin, Osipka Shevernin, Yakushka Milkov, Oleshka Minin, Vaska Maltsov, Mitya Sofonov, Ontonka Zaitsov, foreman Login Rodyukin, Bogdashka Kortavoy, Selyushka Fateev, Ofonka Kuznets, Matyushka Maltsov, Grishka Putin, Kornilka Kuznetsov, Larka Igumnov, Ivashka Sokurov, Ivashka Shishik, Grishka Savin, Gulyayka Plokhovo, Zamyatenka Naumov, Fedka Ondreev, Savka Pravdin, foreman Yudka Sergeev, Pashka Grechishnikov, Senka Korostelev, Danilka Kortsov, Babarik Frolov, Yakushka Ososkov, Ivashka Penkovets, Petrushka Plokhovo, Gavrilka Martyanov, Mishka Teleshov, Ondryushka Pasnovets, Vaska Erin, Minka Meshchaninov, Tishka Ulyanov, Ondryushka Konoplin, Mitka Sheplin, Danilka Borbota, Ivashka Rubtsov, foreman Mikiforka Lukin, Ivanka Glumov , Ondryushka Mikhailov, Mishka Mikiforov, Ivashka Shakhov, Mikhalka Erin, Myakotka Kozhevnikov, Bogdashka Topin, Grishka Filipov, Kucha Naumov, Pentecostal Fedor Sabelnikov, Filipka Gavrilov, Petrusha Maltsov, Maksimka Maltsov, Stepanka Dutovo, Fedka Denisov, Ondryushka Chemigov, Kuzemka Dudin, Fochka Nikonov, Stepanka Vodostoev, foreman Yakushka Ostrovsky, Ontoshka Ovdeev, Grishka Moseev, Ivashka Prudnikov, Moseyka Zakharov, Savka Glumov, Stepanka Vlasov, Fedka Pravdin, Larka Lukhtanov, foreman Ivanka Karpov, Senka Burdukov, Ivashka Lobanov, Davydka Bykov, Minka Pokhomov, Ondryushka Zakharov, foreman Vaska Shurinin, Ortemka Kushnerev, Fedka Grigoriev, Ofonka Kirpichev, Rodka Poltev, Bogdashka Ozarov, Zhadka Filipov, Fedka Prosvetkin, Ivashka Shurinin, foreman Grisha Merzlyukin, Ivashka Loginov, Ivashka Serpukhovitin, Tishka Dutovo, Bogdashka Onanin, Mitka Larin, Vaska Romanov, Savka Poltev, Izmailik Kostin, Fedka Maslenikov, foreman Bogdashka Gorbunov, Yakushka Koluzheninov, Kireyka Myagkovo, Mitka Ostapov, Bogdashka Yurakov, Petrushka Visogor, Senka Milkov, Bogdashka Vodostoev. The geographical nicknames of some Cossacks are striking: Kaluzheninov, Meshchaninov, Serpukhovitin. There is no information about the number and origin of the Novgorod-Seversk Cossacks of the early 17th century, but there is no doubt that the local Cossack contingent was formed from people from southern and central Russia. A little later, the niche of the Russian Cossacks of Novgorod-Seversky (transferred to the Seversk cities) was occupied by the Cherkassy. Oskol Cossacks have appeared on the historical scene since the 1570s. In those years, after official approval, the guard and stanitsa service was just being deployed; the so-called Oskol River was built. Ust-Ublinsky fort. It was alternately served by military men - boyar children and Cossacks from Dedilov, Dankov, Krapivna, Novosil, etc. Most likely, some local population groups of Pooskolye, like the Putivl Sevryuks, were called “Oskol Cossacks”. The latter are present in scribe books for [Stary] Oskol until the 1640s. It is interesting that stellate sturgeons are not noted in the census sources of that time as landowners. So, for example, in a scribe’s book of 1643, when describing the lands of the monastery of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker (which is on the Kholkov settlement), a certain industrial construction of the sturgeon farm of Ageika Golenishchev is noted: “along the river along Oskol to the sturgeon hut to the Ageikov bayarak of Golenishchev, three miles.” That is, Agey Golenishchev had some kind of latrine trade here... During the construction of the city of Tsarev-Borisov in the Wild Field, which happened in 1599, local governors tried in every possible way to attract Donetsk Cossacks living on the banks of the Seversky Donets to guard and stanitsa services. The Cossacks were promised to retain their fishing grounds upon entering the civil service. Most likely, a certain number of Donetsk Cossacks entered service in the new Ukrainian cities: Belgorod, Oskol and Kursk; in the order of 1589 to the Putivite A. Zinoviev there is a mention of the free Cossacks of the Sem River (Seim). Cherkasy also lived on the Seversky Donets: in 1588, 700 Ukrainian Cossacks with ataman Matvey Fedorov settled on its banks and performed guard duty. Speaking about the Donetsk Cossacks, one cannot fail to mention one moderately well-known character from among the Belgorod residents - the sturgeon Zhadka Gorbun (in a number of sources called Zhaden, Zhdanka). Zhdanka is interesting because in the period from 1620 to 1640 he managed to be in several social forms: a merchant, a walking man, a sturgeon and a Donetsk Cossack. In the scribe book for the Belgorod district of 1625/26, the Hunchback’s courtyard is recorded in the settlement of merchants and artisans who paid rent to the sovereign’s treasury. Later, during the Cherkassy attack on Belgorod in the spring of 1633, Zhadka Gorbun “surfaces” as a Donetsk Cossack, and attested in the role of the Cossack initial person (always indicated at the very beginning of the list). For the third time, Zhadka the Hunchback was recorded as a sturgeon - a walking person (i.e., not belonging to any class community). The essence of the matter is this. On December 2, 1639, the local Cherkassy centurion Gavrila Gavronsky brought the peasant of the St. Nicholas Monastery, Mikitka Malyutin, to the retreat house of the city of Chuguev. The centurion claimed that he somehow found out that Malyutin had stolen two tubs of honey from him. During the interrogation, Mikitka Malyutin said that he bought this honey from the sturgeon Zhadka the Hunchback. After Zhadka was detained, under torture it was found out that on November 29 he personally “torn out fifty hives of bees from the centurion Gavronsky.” The Belgorod walking man Ivashka Krasheninnik was also mentioned, who bought 15 pounds of stolen honey from Zhadka in the fishing grounds of Gorbun on the Seversky Donets. As the investigation progressed, it was established that Krasheninnik and Malyutin were accomplices of the Hunchback. The Chuguev administration requested that Krasheninnik be expelled from Belgorod for detective work, but the latter did not show up. Gavrila Gavronsky was strictly forbidden to carry out personal reprisals. After torture, Zhadka the Hunchback died of scurvy, Krasheninnik was detained in Belgorod. The result of the matter was the decision to “adjust” Malyutin, Krasheninnik, the widow and children of Zhadka the Hunchback for a ruble for 50 beehives. Thus, as we see from the incident, the Donetsk Cossacks consisted partly of local stellate sturgeons, having on-board fishing as one of their economic activities. “Kamarichi, was a suburb of Sevskaya, near which Cossacks formerly lived, but Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, partly from them recruited and partly from other cities, soldiers of the Shepelev division settled 8 regiments, many of which under Peter the Great became soldiers and dragoons of the army, and when they were put into the capitation salary, the gentlemen received most of them as rewards, and now less than half of them remain state-owned,” wrote V.N. Tatishchev. In the present case, by “Cossacks” the historian meant certain free “non-tax” people who populated the Komaritsa volost in the 17th century. Moreover, in the Komaritsa volost of the first half of the 17th century there are still references to local sturgeon. As a rule, these are its northern regions, the villages: Snytkino, Klinskoye, Trostnaya, Luboshevo, Litovnya, Lugan, Ivanovskaya, Shemyakino, Dubrovka, Grimovna. Some Komaritsa sevryuks imprinted in their surnames the nickname of the former Seversk appanage prince Vasily Shemyaki (Shemyachich) - Shenyakovs (aka Shemyakovs, Shevyakovs) - “Komaritsky volosts sevryuks” Pershe Shemyakov was given possession from the sovereign treasury of the village of Litovniki and the village of Sytichi - “for service from ... the sovereign's palace Komaritsa volosts." When P. Shemyakov died, the village was owned by his sons, Savva and Vasily, who served in the town of Pereslavl-Zalessky outside Moscow. In addition, the Shemyakovs can also be found among the free, willing people of the Komaritsa volost, who went to the Don in 1646 to help the Cossack army. There were Shemyakovs in the Belgorod region. Thus, in the handout book of Khotmyzhsk from 1640-42 you can meet a certain Foma Grigoriev Shenyakov, who in the “skap” about his and his father’s service provides interesting details - “he served in Belgorod in self-propelled guns, and his father lived in the Komaritsa volost. In the sovereign service in Khotmyzhsk from 148 (1640). In service he is on a gelding with a spear and a long arquebus.” But let's get back to the heart of the matter. In 1633, 600 so-called Danish Cossacks, taken from the 5th and 10th households (depending on the situation), were recruited from the Komaritsa datochny peasants to strengthen Sevsk during a possible siege. The datochny Cossacks were supposed to be armed with a arquebus, a spear and an ax. Service in the Sevsky fortress for them was “according to ... peasant queue” “weekly”, then the garrison was replenished by a new batch of datochny, recruited according to the same scheme, in addition to everything “without assignment”. In addition, the Cossack garrison of Sevsk consisted of former Novgorod-Seversky Svedets and palace peasants recruited into permanent Cossack service. Datochny Cossacks participated in the so-called. “Northern Campaign” near Trubchevsk, occupied by the Lithuanians and a punitive expedition near the Cherkassy city of Borzna. The combat effectiveness of the Danish Cossacks was much lower than that of the garrison servicemen. There is a known case when the Sevsk governor Grigory Pushkin (on the occasion of the news of the arrival of Cherkas near Putivl) failed to gather dat Cossacks from two camps of the Komaritsky volost: “and the Komaritsky, sir, the peasants of the Brasovsky and Glodnevsky volosts did not listen to the camp, they did not give dat Cossacks to Sevesk and The peasants of the Brasavsky and Glodnevsky and Radogozhsky camps themselves did not go to Sevesk during the siege.” At the end of the Smolensk War, the datka Cossacks were returned to the category of palace peasants, some of them, however, received the sovereign's salary: “2 rubles and good cloth.” This is a brief history of the Cossacks of Severshchina. As we see, there is a symbiosis of several ethnic and social formations - a free “non-draft” population that came to the southern Russian steppes, in all likelihood partly mixed with the remnants of the ancient north.

Russian cities and villages were separated from the Tatar nomadic areas by hundreds of kilometers of steppe and forest-steppe spaces. It begged to organize reconnaissance in the steppe.
Moved forward into the steppe, detachments of mounted Russian soldiers could find out in advance about the movement of the Tatars and warn the government and population about it. Well-organized reconnaissance made it possible to prepare in advance for a Tatar attack, gather troops, and strike back at the Tatars.
By the 16th century The guard service already had history and traditions. In the chronicles there are references to sending Russian guard detachments to the southern steppe back in the era of feudal fragmentation. In 1380, Moscow Prince Dmitry Donskoy sent watchmen to the steppe who closely monitored the movements of Khan Mamai and brought messages to the prince81. Watchmen were also known in the 15th century. But the organization of guard service in the southern steppe on a national scale became possible only in the 16th century, after the unification of all Russian lands around Moscow and the formation of the Russian centralized state.
The first and, perhaps, the only researcher of watchdog service in Russia was I. D. Belyaev; We examined his main work on this issue in a historiographical review. After the work of I.D. Belyaev, the development of the Russian watchdog service as a whole was not studied; only articles appeared on similar and specific issues. Using both sources introduced into scientific circulation by I. D. Belyaev, and some other documents of the 16th-17th centuries, we will try to show the guard service in the south of Russia in historical development, to find out its significance before the construction of the Belgorod Line.
What are watchmen and villages, what is their difference? The watchman was an observation post consisting of several horsemen who usually had to ride back and forth along a small, pre-designated area, for example across a Tatar road. The guard was changed depending on a number of reasons (distance from the city, the magnitude of the danger) after a few days, a week, even a month. The villages were patrol mobile detachments that traveled from the city to the steppe along a pre-established route and returned to the city. It was among the villagers in the 16th and 17th centuries. Another duty was setting fire to the steppes, which was often carried out over large areas. The steppe was burned, as one document says, “so that when the military people arrived there would be nothing to feed the horses with.”
In the middle of the 16th century. The guards and villages who traveled from the northern cities of Putivl and Rylsk to the southeast were of great importance. The geographical location of these cities allowed them to receive the earliest information about the performance of the Crimean Tatars. This information was transmitted to Moscow. For example, in 1552, the Putivl village resident Ivan Strelnik reported in Moscow that the Crimean Tatars were marching on Russian cities and “had already climbed over the Seversky Donets.”
In 1571, Prince M.I. Vorotynsky became the all-Russian head of the guard service. Experts on the steppe outskirts were summoned to Moscow from the southern cities - boyar children, village residents, watchmen, leaders (guides). It is from the questioning of these people, carried out in the Discharge Order and recorded in the “watch book,” that we learn about many of the details of the organization of guard service on the steppe outskirts before 1571. The very fact of convening such a representative military congress is of great interest. At the same time, a wonderful charter for the guard service was drawn up. M.I. Vorotynsky alone cannot be considered the author of the charter. This document was the fruit of the collective creativity of the congress participants, as evidenced by the text itself (“the boyar Prince Mikhail Ivanovich Vorotynsky sentenced the children of the boyars, with the heads of the villages and with the villagers”).
The charter defined the tasks of the guard service: so that “the Ukrainians would be more careful, so that military people would not come to the sovereign’s Ukrainian wars unknown.” The duties of watchmen were discussed in detail. One of the guards must always be on horseback; everyone had no right to dismount at the same time. It was forbidden to stop in the forests or light a fire for cooking twice in the same place. Each watchman was required to have two good horses. The charter explained what to do when Tatars were discovered. While one of the watchmen reported the appearance of the enemy in the nearest city, the others had to go behind the Tatars' rear and determine the number of enemies by the traces left behind. The charter established the terms of guard and stanitsa services: from April 1 until the “big snows”.
Fundamentally new in the guard service was the introduction in 1571 of all-Russian guard posts in the southern steppe, in addition to the villages and watchmen sent from individual cities. It was decided to organize 4 all-Russian guards of the post, each under the leadership of a standing head. The first (counting from the east) was located on the right bank of the Volga at the mouth of the Balykleya River, the second - “on the Don near Veshki” (the area of ​​​​the modern village of Veshenskaya in the Rostov region), the third - on the river. Oskol at the confluence of the Ubli River, the fourth - on the river. Seima at the mouth of the Khona River. Later, the first watchman moved to the Tileorman forest (the area of ​​the modern city of Borisoglebsk, Voronezh region), the second moved to the mouth of the river. Quiet Sosny, the third remained in its place - on the river. Oskol, the fourth moved to the river. Seversky Donets to the mouth of the river. Ud. This is how these all-Russian guard posts were located according to the paintings of 1577 and 1578.
They stood for most of the year - spring, summer and autumn. At the same time, there were about 400 people on four guards. Between all four watchmen, there were constant patrols of Cossack guards of 6 people along precisely established routes. The location of the all-Russian watchmen, the number of people in them, and the travel schedule were established annually at the end of winter in the Discharge Order, first under the leadership of M. I. Vorotynsky, and then N. R. Yuryev.
All-Russian watch posts existed before the emergence of the first cities “on the field”: Voronezh and Liven; the last time they were installed was in 1585. However, by this time, instead of four all-Russian watch posts, only two central ones remained. The guards at the Tileorman Forest turned out to be unnecessary - the Tatars did not go there in the 80s, but the Seversky Donets had enough guards from Putivl. It is possible that the economic crisis in the central regions of Russia in the 70s and early 80s of the 16th century. played a role in reducing the number of all-Russian watchmen.
During the reorganization of the guard service in 1571, much attention was paid to the Putivl and Rylsk villages. Previously, the villages apparently traveled to the steppe sporadically, but now a strict schedule was drawn up. From Putivl the villages had to leave in two directions, from Rylsk - in one; travel began on April 1st. Prince M. Tyufyakin and clerk M. Rzhevsky were sent to clarify the routes of the Putivl and Rylsk villages. After inspecting the area by M. Tyufyakin and M. Rzhevsky, the Putivl and Rylsk villages moved further south than before.
Historians have still paid attention to the military significance of the reorganization of the guard and village service in 1571. We want to emphasize the political significance of these events, in particular the trips of M. Tyufyakin and M. Rzhevsky to the southern steppes. At the extreme points of the village crossings, M. Tyufyakin and M. Rzhevsky erected special border signs in the spring of 1571. On a huge oak tree that grew at the source of the river. Mius, a cross was carved on an oak tree in the upper reaches of the river. The names of Tyufyakin and Rzhevsky, year, month and day are engraved in the eagle. This act seemed to confirm the official borders of the Russian state in the southern steppe, which extended right up to the river. Miusa. It was taken for granted that Russian villages traveled through their own land, through the territory of the Russian state. Now their path lay to the border.
Among the decisions on the reorganization of the guard and stanitsa service adopted in Moscow in February 1571, there was a special decree “on Putivl sevryuks.” Local non-service residents of the Seversk land - “Sevryuks”, who previously went to work as Donetsk guards for hire, for money, were now removed from the business. From now on, only service people, but not mercenaries, could be sent to guards and villages. The Putivl voivode was ordered to compensate the new boyar children with local and monetary salaries. It was also allowed to recruit 100 mounted Cossacks into the Cossack service “and serve them with Polish parcels and guards from the land without money.”

Read on January 26 and February 23, 1846 at the “Imperial Society of Russian History and Antiquities” at Moscow University. Belyaev Ivan Dmitrievich. Presented in abbreviation.

The borders of Northeastern Rus', neighboring the Volga, Don and even Dnieper steppes, were called the Polish Ukrainian of the Moscow State in our ancient official papers. These borders, not protected by nature and subject to frequent and devastating raids of the Horde, required constant and active defense, and therefore the Moscow Sovereigns, back in the 14th century, found it necessary to establish a permanent guard here, which would monitor the movements of the Horde and notify the border governors about everything in a timely manner. even the Sovereigns themselves. The first news of such a guard that has reached us dates back to 1360 AD. or a little later: namely, Metropolitan Alexey, in his letter to Cherleny Yar around this time, mentions guards along the Khopr and Don. In all likelihood, the establishment of such a guard began shortly before this time; for in the charter of Metropolitan Theognost, written between 1334 and 1353 on the same Cherleny Yar, nothing is mentioned about the guards along the Khopr and Don; Moreover, the very state of the Moscow State, which until Demetrius Donskoy was completely dependent on the Horde Khans, of course, until now did not allow even thinking about establishing guards that would be offensive to the Tatars. And even under Donskoy, the idea of ​​guards could only have been born, but by no means had room for full development; for the Moscow State, separated from the Tatars by the possessions of the Princes of Ryazan, Murom, Nizhny Novgorod and others, had neither the right nor the opportunity to build fortifications in foreign lands, often hostile.
There is no doubt that the guards mentioned by Metropolitan Alexei were nothing more than hidden dens of traveling guards and villagers, who had the duty of observing the movements of the Tatars and delivering news to Moscow. The dens were initially located along the Khopr, Don, Bystraya Quiet Sosna, and Voronezh, through which the Tatars mainly went to Rus'. From these dens, the patrols of guards and villagers went deeper into the steppes in all directions and sometimes reached the Tatar nomadic camps. So in 1380, Grand Duke Dimitri Ivanovich Donskoy, having received news of Mamai’s campaign, sent Rodion Rzhevsky, Andrei Volosaty, Vasily Tupik and many others to the fast and quiet Pine to observe the movements of the Tatars, and even go to the Horde itself to get a tongue. When the messengers slowed down, he sent other guards, Kliment Polunin, Ivan Svyatoslav and Grigory Sudok. On September 5, Pyotr Gorsky and Karp Oleksin came from the guards and brought one of the significant Mamaev nobles in tongues, who reported that Khan was already at Kuzmin Gati and in three days would be on the Don. On the seventh, seven watchmen came running to the Grand Duke, one after another, constantly notifying about Mamai’s movements.
With the expansion of the borders of the Moscow State to the south and east and with the subjugation of the principalities of Nizhny Novgorod, Murom, Ryazan and others, the guards against the Tatars began to increase, and little by little they took the form of a line of real fortifications along the entire southeastern borders of the State.
In the so-called Ukrainian or border cities on this side, a special class of military service people was established, known as city Cossacks, who were obliged to constantly be in service, travel in the steppe, watch the movements of the Tatars along well-known steppe roads, called roads and sakmas, intercept languages, and deliver messages to the governors and the Sovereign, and in the event of an accidental raid by the Horde, protect Ukrainian cities. Free people from all classes were recruited into this service; for this service they received a certain amount of land according to the articles, who was fit for which, they were exempted, with their families, from all taxes, and sometimes they were awarded a cash salary, but they had to have weapons and horses at their own expense. City Cossacks are first encountered in our chronicles in 1444 when describing the battle with Prince Mustafa, but they probably existed before; however, we do not yet have evidence of the time of the establishment of this class of service people, but we can affirmatively say that city Cossacks should not be confused with either the Don or Volga Cossacks, nor, however, with the Kaisaks, known among the Tatars: for These were free people, voluntarily or by circumstance, who formed special communities, independent of anyone and with their own government; the city Cossacks, obviously, were established by the government and were completely dependent on it. During the reign of Ivan Vasilyevich IV, they came under the jurisdiction of the Streletsky Prikaz and, along with the Streltsy, constituted a special rank of the army, opposite to the nobles and boyar children, who were in the department of the Rank. The city Cossacks had special lists and books, as stated in the description of the Tsar’s Archives of 1575: “Box 38, and in it are books and lists of the Cossacks under Tsar Kasym, and the Tyumen ones under Ivan the Tsar.”
Then the Moscow Sovereigns began to oppose the Tatar raids on the borders of the Tatars themselves, settling Tatar princes and princes in Ukrainian cities, who went over with their hordes to Moscow service. So Grand Duke Vasily Vasilyevich the Dark gave Zvenigorod to Tsarevich Kaisym, son of Ulu-Akhmetov, from which this latter, in 1449, went against the Sedi-Akhmatov Tatars, who were going to plunder the Moscow regions, and in 1451, together with the governor Bezzubtsev, fought against steppe Tatars, led by Ulan Malberdey and other Murzas. Under Grand Duke John III, a new Tatar city, Kasimov, appeared, built to strengthen our borders from Horde raids; in 1474, John gave Tsarevich Murtaza a new town on the Oka River; in 1497, Kashira, Serpukhov and Khotun were given to Tsar Megmet-Amen, who was expelled from Kazan; and then Kashira was handed over to Khan Abdul-Letif.
Meanwhile, the Russian guard, consisting of children of boyars and Cossacks, still stood on the Don, Bystraya and Quiet Pine; moreover, not just for monitoring the Horde, but also for pursuing the robbers. So in 1492, June 10th, the Stanichniki, boyar children, Fyodor Koltovsky and Goryain Sidorov, a total of 64 people, caught up between Trudy and Bystraya Sosna, had a battle with Temesh, who was robbing the Oleksinsky volost at Voshan. And even earlier, in 1468, Grand Duke Ivan Vasilyevich sent outposts or guards to Murom Nizhiy, Kostroma and Galich to guard against Kazan raids. In 1472, Akhmat, while crossing the Oka, met Pyotr Fedorovich Chelyadnin and Simeon Biklemishev, who were defending the shore and who started a shootout with him, and until then they withstood the battle until the Moscow army approached with the Princes of Vereisky and Yuri Vasilyevich. In 1481, Akhmat, approaching the Oka, met ready-made Moscow regiments everywhere and, not daring to continue his journey, turned towards Lithuania. We also find standing troops on the banks of the Oka under the Grand Duke Vasily Ivanovich: so in 1528, the governor-princes, Vasily Semenovich Odoevsky, Ivan Ivanovich Shchetina, Fedor Vasilyevich Lopata and Ivan Fedorovich Ovchina, guarding the banks of the Oka, did not allow the Crimean Sultans, Islam , Yusup, son of Epancha, and two sons of Akhmat the Lame, with many Murzas and Tatars.
During the infancy of John IV, Temnikov was built and other cities in Ukraine were fortified, and the traveling guards and villagers penetrated far into the steppes: the Donets, Don, Volga and other steppe rivers closest to the Crimea, the Nogai Horde and Kazan were already cordoned off by the Moscow guards who were traveling in all directions, from Alatyr and Temnikov to Rylsk and Putivl. So the Crimeans, Nogais and Kazans, with every attack, met ready resistance. The governors and governors of Ukrainian cities quickly received news of the enemy invasion and rushed to help each other. So in 1540, the governor of Ryazan, Prince Mikulivsky, came to the aid of the Kashirs, who were attacked by the Crimean prince Amen. In 1541, the Voivodes of Vladimir and Shah - Alei Kasimovsky came to the aid of the defenders of Murom against Safa-Girey. In the same year, during the invasion of Sahib-Girey of Crimea, the Sovereign of Moscow constantly received news about his movements: on July 21, Prince Mikulinsky sent the first letter, on July 25, the village resident Gabriel arrived in Moscow from Rylsk, penetrating to the Holy Mountains (the tract at confluence of Oskol and Donets). The same stanitsa resident Gabriel traveled around the steppe and came across the sakmas, from which he concluded that the Crimean army extended to 100 thousand people or more. Then another village resident, Alexei Kutukov, came to the Sovereign, who spent the whole day watching the movements of the Crimeans on the Don and Sosva. In 1552, messenger after messenger also came to John with news about the movements of the Crimeans: around June 16, a messenger from the village resident Volzhin, who had reached Aidar, met the Emperor on the way from Kolomenskoye to Ostrov, and reported that the Crimeans had crossed the Northern Donets; then the village resident Vaska Alexandrov came running with the news that they were heading towards Ryazan; and on June 21, the Tula town came running with the news that a detachment of Crimeans had appeared near Tula; On June 23, two messengers came to the Emperor one after another with news of the attacks of Devlet - Girey to Tula; and on June 24th news was received about the flight of the Crimeans. From the report of the governor to the Emperor dated July 1, it is clear that the villagers pursued the Crimeans in the steppes themselves, making sure that the Khan did not return; According to the news of the villagers who overtook the Crimeans on all roads, it is clear that Khan ran 60 and 75 versts a day, abandoning horses and carts.
In 1555, Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich established a new guard on the Volga to monitor the Nogais, consisting of archers and Cossacks. This is how it is said in Artsibyshev’s narrative: “The sovereign sent Streletsky’s head, Grigory Kaftyrev, with the archers, and (ataman) Fyodor Pavlov (with the Cossacks) to the Volga; ordered those officials to guard the transports from the Yusupov children, to be sent with Dervish-Aliy, and, according to the news, go to the aid of Astrakhan. It was not at that time that the Cossack Khoper Regiment was founded, in which the remains of the banner granted by Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich are still kept? These new guards were located so that they could communicate with the guards along the Donets and the Don, and mutually notify each other. And therefore, when, according to the news about the movements of the Yusupov children, the Emperor sent boyar Sheremetev and his comrades against them, they were met on the campaign by the watchman Svyatogorsky and, sent by the village resident Lavrenty Koltovsky, a comrade, who informed the governor that Devlet “Girey has crossed the Donets and is heading towards the Ukrainians of Ryazan and Tula.”
According to news from 1556, it is clear that the Cossacks guarding Ukrainian cities had already begun to penetrate the steppes to attack the Crimeans. So this year, in the month of March, Ataman Mikhailo Groshev walked from Rylsk to the steppe and brought him to the Sovereign of Languages. Then, according to the Sovereign's decree, Dyak Rzhevsky walked from Putivl, also with the Cossacks along the Dnieper; at the same time, Daniil Chulkov and Ivan Maltsov walked down the Don. Chulkov reached Azov and defeated the Tatars he encountered, and Rzhevsky, uniting with Kanevsky Cherkasy, went to Islamkermen and took possession of the Ochakov fortress, fought off the Sainchaks of Tyaginsky and Ochakovsky and returned safely to Putivl with a lot of booty. Thus, all the steppes from our borders to the Crimean peninsula itself were crisscrossed with patrols of Moscow guards and villagers, who were already ravaging the very uluses of the Crimeans and returning to their cities with booty.
However, all this news is still far from complete and fragmentary; from them we can only conclude that from the second half of XI? centuries, there were already guards and sentry patrols in the steppes on the south-eastern borders of the Moscow State, and that these patrols sometimes penetrated to the Crimean uluses; but there are no hints here about the structure of the guard and stanitsa service, one can even doubt whether these mentioned government orders were not random, temporary, without any connection with each other, organized without a system, appearing at the call of circumstances, and then disappearing again, without development and without consequences? But, since 1571, all perplexity about this subject must disappear even in the eyes of the desperate skeptic; fate has preserved for us a number of official documents that shed bright light not only on the subsequent, but also on the previous existence of the guard and village service, its internal structure and gradual development.
In 1571, Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich, wanting to give more order to the guard and village service, by his order dated January 1, appointed the most famous warrior of his time, Boyarin Prince Mikhail Ivanovich Vorotynsky, as its chief commander and ordered to give it a better structure, giving him an assistant for examination and the appointment of guards on the spot, on the part of the Crimeans, Prince Mikhail Tyufyakin and clerk Rzhevsky, famous for the exploits of the steppe war and well acquainted with the Crimean steppes, and on the Nogai side, Yury Bulgakov, also an experienced steppe campaigner, but who once defeated the Crimeans and Nogais.
The intelligent executor of the Tsar's will, Vorotynsky, began the matter with detailed information and interrogations about the current state of this service and about everything in which it required changes, and that could be left in its original form, went through all the paintings and books about this service stored in the Discharge , called to Moscow and made detailed questions to the village residents and guards. From his research it is clear that under Tsar Iran Vasilyevich, 15 years before 1571, there was already a long chain of fortified cities throughout the steppe Ukraine, from Alatyr and Temnikov to Rylsk and Putivl, and that the guard service was under the jurisdiction of the Discharge Order to which deliveries were made. all the paintings of the villages and guards.
Ukrainian cities mentioned in digit paintings can be divided, according to their geographical location, into front and back. The first category included: Alatyr, Temnikov, Kadoma, Shatsk, Ryassk, Donkov, Elifan, Pronsk, Mikhailov, Dedilov, Novosil, Mtsensk, Orel, Novgorod-Seversky, Rylsk, and Putivl. This was the front line of fortresses of the Moscow State, looking straight into the steppe and sending out its traveling villages and guards in all directions. Ahead of this line, in the steppe itself, in places, ditches, abatis, slaughters on rivers and other field fortifications had already been made, forming a new chain of difficulties for Tatar raids; This chain in certain places, as well as cities, was guarded by guards.
The second line of fortified cities, so to speak internal, consisted of: Nizhny Novgorod, Murom, Meshchera, Kasimov, Ryazan, Kashira, Tula, Serpukhov and Zvenigorod, almost all located along the Oka River, which here formed the solid border of the State and, as we have seen before , was constantly guarded by significant troops. Inland cities, in case of need, sent their service people to the front line.
Each of these cities had its own governors and siege leaders with detachments of servicemen, boyar children, Cossacks and archers (from the time of Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich). The Streltsy were actually city warriors, very rarely sent to the steppes and abatis; Boyar children and Cossacks, along with stellate sturgeons and serving Tatars, were divided into policemen or regimental ones, and into stanitsa and guards. The former were used only to protect cities and to repel the enemy on the borders, while the latter were alternately sent to the steppe for travel and to guard the guardhouses, and were divided into village residents, leaders and watchmen; For guard service they received a special salary, higher than that of a regimental or city officer, and were satisfied from the treasury for all damages and losses that could happen while traveling; Horses, harnesses and weapons, when sent to the steppe, were assessed by the governors, who entered this price into special books, and according to these books they issued a reward in case of losses and damages. The government apparently attracted the best people to this important service.
All Ukrainian cities and, it seems, the guards of the Tsar had special drawings and lists, indicating the state of the fortifications, how many troops there were, and what type. So, the Moscow government could verify any report about enemy movements with plans and maps and, depending on the need, move border troops from one point to another, and reinforce places threatened by greater danger, which we will see later. Drawings and lists of Ukrainian cities are mentioned in the description of the Tsar’s Archives of 1575: “Box 144... and in it are drawings and lists of Ukrainian cities.” It seems that no original drawings have survived, or at least have not yet been found; The lists, although not from the 16th century, are available in exact copies.
From the front line of cities in different directions, four days and five days away from the city, and often closer, guards or dens were appointed in the steppe, separated from each other by a day, very rarely two, or more than half a day's journey and closer. These guards were in constant communication with each other and formed several unbroken lines that crossed all the steppe roads along which the Tatars walked to Rus'. They stretched in several groups from the upper reaches of the Sura to Semi, and then from Semi they turned to Vorskla and Donets. The first, easternmost group, walked in a convex line from Barysh, a tributary of the Sura, to Lomov, a tributary of the Tsna; the second from Tsna to Ryasi, a tributary of Voronezh; the third from Ryasi, along the fast Sosna and its tributaries, to the upper reaches of the Oka; fourth along the tributaries of the Semi; the fifth from Semi to Sula, Psl and Vorskl; the sixth along the tributaries of the Vorskla and Donets to the mouth of the Aydar, in the very depths of the Ukrainian steppes, almost in front of the Crimean nomads. Before 1571, there were 73 watchmen, and according to official lists they were divided into 12 categories.
We give an example of only one of them.
"Rank 9: Watchmen Orlovsky and Karachevsky; there are 13 of them. The first is on Semi opposite the Goroden settlement; the second to the top of Bobrok; the third on Molodovaya River; fourth to top Points; fifth on Ochka at the fast ford; the sixth on the same road to Ust-Krom; the seventh on Dubrovo behind the Vyisky forest; the eighth on Tsna on the Zhidomorsky settlement; the ninth on Tsna on the Zvenigorod road; tenth to the top Oleshan; the eleventh behind the Eye under the Ship; the twelfth on Voptukha in the Pristina settlement; and the thirteenth between Voptuh and Rybnitsa".
"Painting to the watchmen "after questioning Boyar Prince Mikhail Ivanovich Vorotynsky and his comrades in 79: watchmen Orlovsky and Karachevsky:"
"The 1st Watchman on Semi is opposite the Gorodenskoye fortification, and the Gorodenskoye fortification is on the left side of the Polish side at Semi; and the watchman on that guard was from Orel and from Karachev, three people from the city, and two people from Rylsk; and to move to the left up the Semi to the mouth of the Kuritsa to the Yuryev settlement, I travel about 20 or half a third versts, and to the right down the Semi about ten versts to the mouth of the Reut, and the Reut fell from the left to the Polish side".
"2nd Watchman at the top of Bobrok is old, between the road, which is the road to Karachev and to the Mestilovsky Gate; to another road that Bokai came from, and the journey is only about 15 versts to the mouth of Zhelenya; and the guards on it will be from Orel and from Karachev, three people each from the city".
"3rd Watchman on the Molodovaya River; guard without moving near the road where it was convenient to cross, and all the roads converged with Semi and from Rylsk to that place; and the guards on it were from two cities from Orel and from Karachev, two people from each city, and the old watchman was on the same road, in Galichya Dubrova, and that watchman was brought down "..."
After collecting detailed and correct information about the state of the guard and village service, Boyar Prince Mikhailo Ivanovich Vorotynsky began to draw up a general code or charter for this service, and on February 16, 1571, with the Tsar’s approval, he issued this charter.
""The painting attached to the above sentence: for the children of boyars with heads in the State service to be on the Donets on the Seversky Ust-Ude: from Severa, from Bryansk, from Pochap, from Starodub, from Novagorodok from Seversky; and in addition from Orel, from Karachev, and a Cossack from Novosil and Orel".
"And choose the heads according to their place for the Sovereign’s service on the field. To the Donets on the Severskaya Ust-Ude from the Seversk cities, from Bryansk, from Pochap, from Starodub, from Novagorodok Seversky".
"And the children of boyars with heads for the Sovereign's service are selected in February, asking the best people from those cities. And so that they know about who they really want to say who will join the Polish service in truth and not out of unfriendliness. And it would be unlikely that only two boyar children would suddenly be sent to the Polish service, for the sake of their needs, it would not be changed to them, or at their discretion."".
While Prince Vorotynsky was making orders in Moscow regarding the steppe Ukrainian service, at the same time, sent to inspect all the villages and guards on the spot, from the Crimean side, Prince Mikhailo Tyufyakin and clerk Rzhevsky, and from Nogai, Yuri Bulgakov and Boris Khokhlov, personally inspected them in the same year. And according to their watch, many of the former guards were replaced by new ones in accordance with the terrain and circumstances, all the routes were determined and marks were left for the riders where they should meet each other. The Donetsk, Rylsky and Putivlsky watchmen especially underwent great changes; their line moved far forward, so that it captured the entire course of the Vorskla to the Dnieper, the Dnieper reached Samara, and the Samara reached the upper reaches of the Tor and Mius, from where it reached the Don to the mouth of the Long Well and to Azov.
However, Prince Tyufyakin did not have time to finish his patrol of all the guards; for between Samara and Arel a watchman came running to him with the news of Devlet-Girey’s campaign against the Moscow Ukraine. And therefore, the order regarding the uninspected guards was made according to the tales of the atamans, Sava Sukhoruk and Stepan Sukovnin, and their comrades.
The orders of Princes Vorotynsky and Tyufyakin and clerk Rzhevsky, although they were not yet completely completed and could not protect Moscow from Devlet-Gireyev’s raid in 1571, nevertheless, the following year they brought the expected benefits and justified the Sovereign’s trust in Vorotynsky and his employees. The new campaign of the Crimean Khan did not hide from the vigilant guards, and the Russian governors managed to gather a sufficient number of troops and make trenches and other fortifications on the banks of the Oka. The Battle of Molodin, the fruit of Vorotynsky’s labors and considerations, which lasted from July 26 to August 1, covered the valiant leader of the Moscow forces with glory. Khan himself, in his letter to the Sovereign of Moscow dated August 23, 1571, testifies to the vigilance of the new guards of the Ukrainian steppe, who greatly contributed to the success of the battle. He writes: “Having visited our parish on the Oka River, they made a yard on the shore with brushwood, and dug a ditch near it.” This evidence proves that the Battle of Molodin was prepared in advance by the Moscow governors, who deliberately directed Khan to their field fortifications and gave battle where they found it more convenient for themselves.
In order to deprive the Crimeans as much as possible of the opportunity to hide their raids from our steppe guards, after the removal of Devlet-Girey, Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich, in October 1571, ordered the Boyar Prince Vorotynsky to burn out the steppe in different places, depending on where it was more convenient, so that in this way to deprive the Crimeans of the opportunity to hide their movements and deprive them of pasture, so necessary for long and fast raids across the steppes. And then a list was drawn up, in which the following nine cities were designated from where to send villages to light the steppe: Meshchera, Donkov, Dedilov, Kropivna, Novosil, Mtsensk, Orel, Rylsk and Putivl. According to this painting, the fire covered a huge expanse of steppe from the upper reaches of the Vorona to the Dnieper and Desna. We have no evidence of the success of such fires; but, in any case, they reveal great knowledge of military affairs in Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich, who perfectly understood which weapons to use against which enemy.
The following year, 1573, it was established as an indispensable rule when traveling around the villages according to the lists, that the villagers, meeting on the tracts, would change their signs, so that, thus, the commanders could see that the villages had reached certain tracts. This seems to have been Vorotynsky’s last order.
In 1574, in February, a new chief of the guard and village service, boyar Nikita Romanovich Yuryev, was appointed. This new appointment of the famous dignitary, close to the Sovereign by kinship and power of attorney, shows that Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich recognized the guard service as one of the most important departments of the State Administration and wanted to bring it to the possible degree of perfection. The new boss, for the first time, found it necessary to provide his subordinates with good local salaries and cash salaries, which was approved in the same year by the general verdict of the Boyar Duma. The Tsar's expectations in choosing a new chief were fully justified by the beneficial consequences for the service: border fortifications and guard patrols quickly began to move forward, crowd the steppe and crush the Nogais and Crimeans.
In 1575, the line of Ukrainian fortifications advanced to Sosna Ust-Liven, where that year the Emperor sent Mikhail Dolmatovich Karpov and Ivashkin as governors. And also in other places it stood out ahead: they entered it " Bryansk, Pochep, Starodub", Novosil, Bolkhov, Odoev, Plova, Solova, Venev, Serpeisk, Kaluga, Mokshansk and Oskol; some of them were built again, while others were strengthened and more suitable for border service. All this prompted Boyarin Nikita Romanovich Yuryev to make new ones in 1576 questions to village heads, village residents, leaders and watchmen regarding steppe guards and patrols.
It seems that at the same time a schedule was made of which cities from which service people should be on guard and what their salaries would be. According to this schedule, it is assigned, for example, to the Mtsensk and Karachevsk local and non-local guards for the Boyarsky children from Mtsensk and Karachev on local salaries and cash salaries, which they receive at the same salaries as people serving in the city.
""According to the petition of serving people of the Polish monthly watchmen".
"... And in Mtsensk and Karachev they were sentenced to guard the boyar children from those cities with small articles, from 50 to 70 and from 100; because in those cities the Cossacks are not written in the paintings. And in Shatsky, and in Novosil and on Orel, they were sentenced to be sent to guards and to Polish parcels in addition to the Cossacks, for which the Cossack parcels would not be enough, to send the children of boyars with small articles, because as in Mtsensk in Karachev, so that in those cities there are Cossacks according to the Sovereign's decree and according to the painting, they were not completely tidied up. Yes, those boyar children should therefore be reconsidered with their horses and all their service; and the names of those children of the boyars and Cossacks who will be chosen to be Polish watchmen in all cities, in which city the guards were ordered to have guards according to the list, are rewritten separately on the list; give lists and their local salaries and money to bring the children of the boyars and Cossacks to Moscow, and give them to the deacon in the Razryadnaya hut. And the children of the boyars receive a cash salary from the city at the same salary; and the guard service also serves them, changing every month, then their service; and the rank and file do not serve them, so that the guard service is complete; "Instead of the arrival of military people, but how can the arrival of military people expect that all the boyar and Cossack children should be with the governors in the regiment for the arrival of military people, and having come from a campaign to be at home"".
""... And the heads on the field were chosen, which stand as a poignant place to protect from the arrival of military people; on the Donets on the Seversky Ust-Ude, the head for the first article was Bryanchanin Fyodor Tolochanov; for another article, Fyodor was exchanged from Serpeisk Nikifor Stepanov, son of Davydov"".
The Crimeans, pursued everywhere by watchmen, paved new roads, but even here their successes were not long-lasting; watchmen found these new paths and reported to the Moscow government, which immediately took its own measures. So in 1579, our watchmen opened a new road for the Crimeans through Kalmiyus, which from Kalmiyus went through the Donets under the Grebennye Mountains half a day before Discord, and one and a half or two days from Azov between the rivers, of which the rivers on the right side of the road flowed into the Don, and on the left to Donets. To stop this road, the heads of the villages were gathered at the council, who, upon questioning, showed that for this it would be enough to strengthen the standing heads on Oskol Ust-Ubli and on the Don Ust-Bogaty Zaton. And for this reason, Boyarin Nikita Romanovich Yuriev so skillfully arranged the patrols of these two heads that they covered all the paths of the Crimeans and constantly communicated with each other.
This last order ends the government’s concerns about the guard and village service under Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich; at least no further orders have yet been encountered.
How far the severity of discipline in this service reached during the time of Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich can be seen from the fact that every year detailed lists were delivered to the Discharge to all guards and villages who were present during the year, in which the lists clearly showed all arrivals for service, indicating who how many days he was on the road and for how long he arrived at his appointed place, and who replaced him and when. Here is one excerpt from such a painting, which is excellent to speak in its favor: " "... In the 1st place there were heads in the field on the Donets in Seversky Ust-Uda: from the spring, Bryansk resident Ignatey Ondreev, son of Tyutchev; and he was ordered to go to the field from Rylsk. And Ignatey stood in Rylsk on a great day, on the 8th day of April; and from Rylsk he went to Radunitsa on the 15th day of April, on the Donets it became April on the 24th day, it was the 10th day; and the people with him were Starodubtsev, Novogorodka Seversky, Pochaptsov, Bolkhovichi, a total of 63 boyar children, yes Cossacks from Novosil and Orel 30 people, 15 people from the city; a total of 93 people".
"Ignatius was exchanged by Bryanchanin Ivan Semichev, who was sent to Rylsk on Thursday in another week of Petrov’s Lent, June on the 13th day; and on the Donets it became July on the 1st day; I lived in Rylsk and walked to the Donets for three weeks; and the people with him were the children of the boyars Bryanchan, Starodubtsy, Novogorodsk Seversky, Karachevtsy, Bolkhovichi - only 48 people; yes Cossacks from Novosil and from Orel 30 people, 15 people from the city, both 79 people".
"Ivan was exchanged by Bryanchanin Afonasy Panyutin, he was stationed for a term in Rilsk on the 1st Wednesday of Lady's Day, August on the 21st day, and on the Donets he stood on the 1st day of September, walked to the Donets to Seversky on the 10th day; and the people with him were the children of the boyars Bryanchan, Starodubtsy, Karachevtsy, Bolkhovichi, a total of 49 people, and Cossacks from Novosil and from Orel 30 people, 15 people from the city; both 69 people".
"And travel to the villages from those heads to the right along the bank to the top of Areli, and to the left along the Donets to Ust-Oskol and to the Holy Mountains, and to the Great Transport and to Ust-Aidar. And they sent heads of 6 people to each village, skipping between the villages for three days. And with the news, the village owner was ordered to run, who would drive Sakma military people on top of Berestovye through the Muravskaya Highway, three people on Ust-Uda to their heads, and the other three people would run with the news to Putivl, and they would arrive in Putivl about two horses in four days. And which villagers will move Sakmu military people down the Donets, going to Oskol and to Ust-Aidar, and that villager will run with news to the head to Ust-Uda, and the other three people to Novosil, and they will arrive in Novosil with news of two horses in seven days, before the big people, before the military people come to Ukraine ten days or more"".
During the first two years of the reign of Fyodor Ivanovich, the Ukrainian guard service did not undergo changes and was managed according to the previous schedules. But since 1586, by the verdict of Boyarin Nikita Romanovich Yuryev, the line of Ukrainian cities moved into the steppe to Sosna and the mouth of Voronezh. It was this year, on the 1st day of March, that the decision was made to build two new cities, Livny and Voronezh: the first on Sosna, two days before reaching Oskol, and the second on the Don and Voronezh, two days before Bogaty Zaton. The first was ordered to be delivered to the governor, Prince Volodimir Vasilyevich Koltsov-Mosalsky, and Lukyan Khrushchov; and the second to the governor Semyon Fedorovich Saburov, and Ivan Sudakov, and Vasily Birkin. These cities were built specifically for guard duty.
Around this time, Cherkasy or Little Russian Cossacks began to join the Ukrainian guard service of the Moscow State. They initially began to settle in Putivl district, as the closest to Little Russia. It is also mentioned here that the Little Russians received estates and salaries for guard and stanitsa service in the same way as the native service people of the Moscow State.
Around 1592, another new city, Yelets, was built along Bystraya Sosna, and on the 29th of July of this year, a painting of the Yelets watchmen was sent to Moscow to the Tsar from the Yelets governor, Prince Andrei Zvenigorodsky, and the head, Ivan Myasnov. In 1595, another new Ukrainian city, Kromy, was mentioned. This year, by order of the Sovereign, Prince Vladimir Koltsov-Mosalsky arranged new guards from Krom. At the end of the reign of Fyodor Ivanovich, Belgorod was built, extending far into the steppe beyond the line of other Ukrainian cities. This city subsequently became the center of the Ukrainian guard service and formed a special Belgorod category in the Moscow Administration. Thus, during the reign of Fyodor Ivanovich, the line of Ukrainian fortifications was replenished with five cities, which formed a rather acute angle, resting its base from the west on the upper reaches of the Oka, and from the east on the fast Pine, and penetrating deep into the steppes to the mouth of Voronezh and the upper reaches of the Donets, where, as Belgorod stood as the foremost guard. In addition, under Tsar Fyodor Ivanovich, mention is made of a new extension of patrol lines and guards along the Volga, from Nizhny Novgorod to Astrakhan and further, even to the Terek. This service was carried out mainly by free Volga and Yaitsky Cossacks, inhabitants of the steppes, it seems, predominantly of Tatar origin, dependent on their atamans and who knew no other authority.
During the reign of Boris Fedorovich Godunov, the guards, villages, abatis and other fortifications were in good condition.
News from the steppes was always brought in advance, Ukrainian cities were constantly guarded by strong troops; The tsar had drawings not only for border towns, but even for abatis.
"“On the 11th day of May, the Emperor looked at the serif drawings..."
"... In the same year there were boyars and governors and diyaks in the cities in annual: ... in Karachev Elizarei Bezobrazov, ... in Bryansk Pyotr Voeikov, in his place the governor Danilo Ondreev, son of Zamytskaya, ... in Starodub Seversky, the governor Prince Oleksey, Prince Mikhailo son of Lvov, and Grigory Ondreev son Olyabyov"".
In 1600, Boris Fedorovich ordered Bogdan Belsky to build a new Borisov fortress in the steppe on the right bank of Oskol, 14 versts from the Izyum Watchhouse. Other orders of this Sovereign regarding the Ukrainian guard service are not yet known.
After the death of Boris Fedorovich, under his son, during the impostor and interregnum, the Moscow Government had no time to think about Ukraine and its fortifications and, it seems, most of the Ukrainian troops were moved to Moscow. But with the accession of Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov to the throne, the guard and village service in the Ukrainian steppes little by little again received a better structure. Already in 1615, Ukrainian cities were quite fortified and equipped with troops, and in the rank lists of this year they were divided into 5 departments. Of these, the first consists of Ukrainian cities proper, belonging to the internal line; they were as follows: Kolomna, Serpukhov, Aleksin, Kaluga; 2nd department of the city of Ryazan: Pereslavl Ryazansky, Zaraysk, Mikhailov, Pronsk, Ryassk, Shatsk, Sapozhek, Gremyachey, Tarusa, Benev, Epifan, Dedilov, Donkov, Borovsk, Yaroslavets Maloy, Likhvin, Przemysl, Belev, Bolkhov, Orel, Karachev , Chern, Kozelsk, Meshchevsk; 3rd department Seversk cities: Bryansk, Novgorod Seversky, Starodub, Rylsk, Putivl; 4th department, the actual Steppe cities: Kursk, Livny, Voronezh, Yelets, Lebedyan, Volunki, Belgorod, Oskol; 5th department of the city of Nizovye: Terki, Astrakhan, Tsaritsyn, Samara, Kazan, Tetyushi, Kurmysh, Alator, Kasimov, Kadoma and Temnikov; only 53 cities.
And in the Discharge List of 1616, even the number of troops that formed the garrisons of all Ukrainian cities is calculated, which, however, gives a not entirely favorable idea of ​​​​the then protection of the Ukrainian borders of the Moscow State.
""Discharge painting of 1616: In 1724, there were boyars and governors and clerks and heads from the Crimean Ukraine, and in the Seversky and Polish cities for an annual service".
"In Karachev, Ivan Yuryev is the son of Lovchikov, and with him: children of the boyar Karachevtsy (...), Karachevsky archers 35 people, Cossacks 70 people".
"In Bryansk, the steward and governor Prince Ivan Prince Ondreev, son of Dashkov, and Vasily Elizariev, son of Protopopov; and with him: nobles and boyar children, Bryanchan 108 people, Roslavtsov 96 people, Pocheptsov 36 people, gunners and strikers 70 people, collars 6 people, blacksmiths 4 people, archers 177 people. And only 497 people".
"There were 300 Bryansk Roslavsky archers in Bryansk with their heads and centurions, and in the current year in January 124, according to the tale of the Bryansk governor Peter Voeikov, there were 177 of those archers in Bryansk, and the rest were beaten from the Lisovsky parish; and others scattered from poverty".
"In Starodub in Seversky, the voivode is Prince Ivan, Prince Petrov, son of Zasekin, and Peter Matveev, son of Bezobrazov; and Prince Ivan and Peter were ordered to go to Moscow, and in Starodub the captain, governor Oleksandr Mikhailov, son of Nagovo and Prokofy Voeikov, was ordered to be there; and Prokofey was released, and Ivan Petrov’s son Kologrivov was ordered to take his place; and with them: children of the boyars Starodubtsy 170 people, gunners and fighters 26 people, collars 4 people, with a head of 200 archers, and 100 Cossacks; yes, they were ordered to be profitable military men in Starodub: from Lebedyan there are 150 people and a total of 650 people, a boyar’s child, and an ataman, and a Cossack.”".
All troops located in Ukrainian cities and stretched over more than a thousand miles extend no further than 24,350 people; namely, in the Ukrainian cities proper, numbering thirty-four, from Arzamas to Novosil, the city army was 12,844 people, in five cities of the Seversky category, from Bryansk to Putivl, 3,662 people; in the eight steppe cities, from Voronezh to Kursk, 7844 people; in the lower cities the number of troops is not indicated. However, it should be noted that this calculation does not seem to include the guard and village troops located in the villages and guard hangouts in the steppe along the Dnieper, Donets, Oskol, Tikhaya and Bystrya Sosna, Voronezh and Tsna. Even in the city troops, there is no mention of the brothers, nephews, subordinates and backbenchers of the service people, who were probably not much less than those placed in the rank list, and who also participated in the service. Moreover, one cannot lose sight of the fact that some cities, probably more dangerous from the Crimean raids, or lying in the middle of the roads, were supplied, judging by the circumstances in which the State was then located, with sufficient garrisons. So in Tula there were 640 city troops; in Ryazan (i.e., Pereslavl Ryazan) 829 people; in Kaluga 2109 people; in Mtsensk 781; in Novosili 806; in Starodub 650; in Novgorod Seversky 693; in Rylsk 773; in Putivl 1049; in Voronezh 971; in Livny 824; in Yelets 1969; in Oskol 856; in Voluyki 620; in Belgorod 813; in Kursk there are 1321 people.
In addition, according to the painting of the same year, in the Crimean Ukraine there were special corps of troops, which were supposed to appear everywhere, as needed, to protect the steppe borders. These corps were located like this: The large regiment stood in Tula, with Prince Fyodor Kurakin, 1649 people; advanced regiment in Mtsensk, with Prince Vasily Turenin, 884 people; guard regiment in Novosili, with Mikhail Dmitriev, 801 people. Moreover, detachments were scattered throughout the cities to communicate with the main regiments in the event of an enemy raid: in Ryazan with Voivode Koltovsky, 659 people; on Mikhailov, with governor Ivan Pushkin, 396 people; in Pronsk, with Grigory Chelyustin, 470 people; in Zaraysk, with Timofey Pavlov, 287 people; in Ryassk, with Lavrentiy Kologrivov, 468 people; in Donkovo, with Andrey Khotyaintsov, 425 people; in Shatsk, with Vladimir Veshnyakov, 240 people.
The number of troops stationed in regiments in Ukraine in 1624, 1625 and 1626, according to the rank lists, was as follows: in 1624 9464 people; in 1625 10,838 people; in addition, in the same year there were 16,677 troops stationed along the eastern border in the next 12 cities; in Terki, Astrakhan, Tsaritsyn, Saratov, Samara, Kazan, Tetyushi, Alator, Temnikov, Kadom, Kasimov and Ufa; in 1626 10,890 people. In 1630, the number of troops in the Ukrainian regiments decreased to 8898 people, probably due to preparations for the Polish War. Then, in the next three years, on the occasion of the war with the Poles, the decrease in Ukrainian regiments was even more significant; namely, in 1631 in the Ukraine there were only 4,842 people in the regiments, and in 1632 - 4,827 people, and, moreover, only with smaller commanders; the big ones were supposed to appear only in the event of news of the great campaign of the Crimeans; in 1633 and 1634 and with great voivodes there were only 4955 people. But after peace was concluded with Poland, Ukrainian troops increased again. In 1635, there were already 12,759 people on the regiments in Ukraine, and in 1636, 17,055 people. In addition, the number of Ukrainian siege troops increased significantly; since 1635 there were 13,991 people, located in the following 11 cities: Kursk, Oskol, Voluyki, Voronezh, Yelets, Livny, Bryansk, Rylsk, Putivl, Sevsk and Belgorod; Since 1636, the rank paintings of the Ukrainian regiments have been lost, and therefore there is nothing to say about this subject from this year.
Since 1636, Tsar Mikhail Feodorovich adopted the previous method of defense against the Crimeans, which consisted of building new fortresses, strengthening old ones, increasing abatis, ditches and faces along the rivers, building forts, and connecting fortresses with each other with continuous field fortifications. So in 1636, by his decree, Chernavsk, Kozlov, Tambov and Lomov were built, and Oryol was restored.
Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich, taking care of strengthening the Ukrainian borders, tried no less to take care of the population of this region. In addition to resettling from other regions of Moscow and placing service people in Ukrainian cities, this wise sovereign tried to attract the Little Russian Cossacks, or then the so-called Cherkasy, oppressed by the Polish government, to the Moscow Ukraine, gave them rich lands for settlement in Ukrainian cities and counties, and assigned a salary to the New Settlers for their initial home setup.
The constant concerns of the Moscow Government about strengthening and populating the borders along the Moscow steppe Ukraine were the result of extreme necessity. The restless Crimean riders, who were an instrument of either Polish or Turkish politics, constantly disturbed our steppe borders; residents of Ukrainian cities were in constant fear of their raids; City governors, with all the increasing news about the Crimeans and Nogais, gathered district residents under siege, forced them to leave fields and villages, drive cattle into dense forests, and bury bread in pits. Every year, in the summer months, from the beginning of May to September, and sometimes until October, every now and then, the Crimeans appeared, here and there, on our borders, and only the constant and vigilant guards and the steppe patrols of the villagers managed to protect the inhabitants from captivity or complete ruin.
There is nothing to talk about peace treaties with the restless Crimeans; After the death of Mengli Giray, they were constantly useless and led to nothing; this is already factually true; and Moscow could not think about the conquest of the Crimea even during the reign of John I, for the vast steppe expanse for nomadic riders, separating the Moscow State from the Crimea, was an insurmountable obstacle to our conquests on this side. Ivan the Terrible fully showed his deeply governmental mind, not agreeing to the conviction of advisers who, carried away by the successful raids of Prince Vishnevetsky and the clerk of Rzhevsky, insisted on the conquest of Crimea. Not to mention failure, which was very likely, even the happiest campaign did not promise much benefit. Crimea could only be conquered temporarily, and then with a huge loss of people on our part; ours could crush and burn the cities and villages of the Crimeans, but the wild nomadic hordes, scattered across the free steppe, remained elusive and, following the removal of our army, would again occupy their former homes and again begin to attack our borders. For the complete conquest of the Crimea there was only one sure means - the gradual settlement of the steppe and the constant maintenance of a guard army on the border; and the perspicacious John set to work on this idea with all the zeal of a man convinced of the correctness of the planned calculation. The long-standing line of fortifications along the Oka and the guardhouses in the steppe, even under the Donskoy, caused by the extreme need of the State, served as the main material for John to carry out his correctly conceived plan for populating the steppe. His successors diligently continued to follow the laid path: our Ukrainian cities, year after year, moved forward, and field fortifications and settlements of settlers imperceptibly pressed the steppe and pressed the Crimean freemen to the sea. The annual raids of the Crimeans and Nogais were mostly limited to private robbery and did almost no harm to the general cause of settling the steppe, and, despite them, the guard service, with its system of fortifications and settlement, moved forward with firm steps; Its successes, of course not brilliant, but nevertheless significant, finally reached the point that during the entire long reign of Mikhail Fedorovich, the Crimeans could not make a single significant attack on our Ukraine. This is the true goal of the Ukrainian watchdog service and it, obviously, achieved it and justified the Government’s care for this important department of the State Administration.

Guard and station service

The earliest reports of permanent guards on the steppe border of Rus' date back to 1360. Metropolitan Alexy mentions Moscow guards along the Khopru and the upper reaches of the Don.

The watchmen, which arose under Grand Duke Dmitry Ivanovich, were patrols that monitored the movements of the Horde on Khoper, the upper Don, Bystraya and Quiet Sosna, and Voronezh. In 1380, shortly before the Battle of Kulikovo with the army of Khan Mamai, the princely warriors even went “under the Horde” to get “tongue”. However, the raids of that time were situational in nature. There could not be a permanent guard service under Dmitry Donskoy, even theoretically; the Moscow state was separated from the Horde by the possessions of the Ryazan, Murom, and Nizhny Novgorod princes.

With the expansion of the borders of the Moscow Principality to the south and east, the guards began to turn into lines of posts along the entire southern borders of the state.

In 1472, the border guards met the Great Horde Khan Akhmat at the crossing on the Oka River and exchanged fire with him until the Moscow army approached.

Khan Akhmat, approaching the Oka from Lithuania in 1480, met Moscow patrols everywhere. The tracked movement of the horde ended with “standing on the Ugra”. With the onset of cold weather, the Horde in shame went to their nomadic camps through the possessions of King Casimir. And along the way they robbed all the subjects of their ally they met.

On June 10, 1492, the Moscow villagers caught up with the Horde of the Murza Temes, returning from a raid on Aleksinsky district, between Trudy and Bystraya Sosna, and captured their prisoners.

In 1528, Moscow guards on the Oka River did not allow the “Crimean Sultans” to cross the border.

Of course, there were many cases when steppe inhabitants came “unknown”, that is, suddenly, unnoticed by guards, as, for example, in 1521, but nevertheless the fight against invasions became increasingly organized.

By the end of the reign of Vasily III, guards stood from Alatyr to Rylsk and Putivl. Traveling villagers penetrated the steppe along the Donets and Donets.

In 1540, thanks to timely information received by the governor, the Ryazan prince Mikulinsky came to the aid of the Kashirs, who were attacked by the Crimean “prince” Amin. And the next year, during the invasion of Saip-Girey, the government received a lot of news about his movements. On July 25, the village resident Gabriel arrived in Moscow from Rylsk, having visited the Holy Mountains - the tract at the confluence of Oskol and the Donets. Sluzhily discovered sakmas, from which he concluded that the Crimean army numbered up to 100 thousand people.

In 1552, during the preparations for the attack on Kazan, messengers constantly arrived to Tsar Ivan with news of the Crimean advance - Khan Devlet-Girey was clearly going to disrupt the eastern campaign of the Russian troops.

On June 16, on the way from Kolomenskoye to Ostrov, the tsar met a messenger from the village resident Volzhin, who had visited Aidar. A message was delivered that the Crimeans had crossed the Donets. Then the village resident V. Alexandrov arrived with the news that the steppe inhabitants were heading towards Ryazan. On June 21, a Tula city Cossack galloped up with the message that a Crimean detachment had appeared near Tula. There was nothing to do, the Moscow army was about to go south.

On June 23, two messengers came to the sovereign and reported that the Crimeans and Turks were firing “fiery cannonballs” across Tula, trying to set the city on fire; the Janissaries launched an assault, but were repulsed. The king gave the order to the commanders to cross the Oka and he himself hurried to the crossing at Kashira. However, on June 24, the good news was received that Tula soldiers and townspeople left the city and defeated the Crimeans. On July 1, it became known that the Khan’s army was leaving and had no intention of returning. The villagers who followed him saw that the Crimeans were running away at full speed, covering 60–75 miles a day, abandoning tired horses and looted goods. This made the march to Kazan possible.

In 1555, the tsar established a guard in the lower reaches of the Volga, consisting of archers and Cossacks. They began to guard the transports from the non-peaceful “Yusupov children”, communicating with the guards along the Donets and Don.

In the same year, Tsar Ivan sent governor I. Sheremetev to the south (possibly to unite with the allied Circassians). The Russian army was met on the Donets by the guard Svyatogorsky, and a messenger sent by the village resident L. Koltovsky informed Sheremetev that Khan Devlet-Girey had crossed the Donets and was heading to the “Ukrainians” of Ryazan and Tula. Sheremetev moved behind the Khan's army, destroying the Crimean detachments that had scattered around the area for plunder. In the two-day battle at Fate, the governor was defeated by vastly superior Crimean forces, but the bloodless horde returned to Crimea.

At this time, the Cossack Khopersky regiment was established for guard service until the turbulent 20th century. preserving the banner granted by the king.

In 1556, Cossacks from Ukrainian cities began to penetrate far into the steppes. In March, Ataman Mikhailo Groshev walked from Rylsk to Perekop and brought the captured Crimean languages ​​to the sovereign. By royal decree, governors Daniil Chulkov and Ivan Maltsov went down the Don. Chulkov reached Azov and defeated a Tatar detachment in its vicinity.

In the 1550s management of the guard service was transferred to the responsibility of the Discharge.

For performing this service, people received a salary higher than that of a regimental or city officer, as well as compensation from the treasury for all damages and losses that could happen while traveling. When sent to the steppe, horses, harnesses and weapons were assessed by governors, who entered the assessment into special books. According to these records, compensation was also issued.

The watchmen communicated with each other and thus formed several observation lines that crossed all the steppe roads along which the Crimean Tatars went to Rus'.

The easternmost group of watchmen walked in a convex line from Barysh, a tributary of the Sura, to Lomov, a tributary of the Tsna. The westernmost - along the tributaries of the Vorskla and Donets to the mouth of the Aydar, passing almost in front of the nomadic Crimeans.

In total, before 1571, 73 watchmen were established, which were divided into 12 categories, depending on their removal to the steppe.

People serving on distant guards had to go 400 miles from their home districts. But even further than the guards, the villagers climbed into the field. For example, the first Putivl village crossed through Sula, Psel and Vorskla, traveled through the field along the Muravsky Way to the headwaters of the Vodolagi rivers, then down the Donets to the Holy Mountains, reaching the headwaters of the Samara River. And they returned to Putivl. The path is huge.

“They,” says Bagaliy about the villagers, “mainly had to worry about determining, of course, approximately the number of the enemy, for this they used all sorts of signs. One guard chieftain rode along the Torts River and saw a lot of lights and heard the splashing and neighing of horses... before reaching twenty miles to the Seversky Donets, he saw great dust, and from the looks of it it seemed to him that there were 30,000 enemies. This means that the lights, the snorting and neighing of horses, dust, hoof marks - all this served as signs for the village residents.”

By royal order of January 1, 1571, Prince M. Vorotynsky was appointed head of the guard and village service. As assistants to the elderly governor, Prince Mikhail Tyufyakin, the hero of the steppe war, Dyak Rzhevsky, as an expert on the Crimean border, and the experienced warrior Yuri Bulgakov, an expert on the Nogai border, were given. Tyufyakin and Rzhevsky were sent to inspect the Crimean side. Yuri Bulgakov and Boris Khokhlov examined the Nogai side. After the inspection, they, having studied the existing lists (instructions) of the guard service, began to draw up a new routine.

To help them, the service command called to Moscow the children of boyars, stanitsa heads, stanitsa residents and leaders (guides), those who had repeatedly traveled to the field from Putivl, Rylsk and other border towns.

The assembled warriors had to create such a charter for the border service so that enemies “would not come to the sovereign’s Ukraine in war unknown,” and the villagers and guards would be in exactly those places “where they could guard the military people.”

Having completed the meetings, on February 16, 1571, “according to the Sovereign Tsarev and V. Prince Ivan Vasilyevich of All Russia” decree, the head of the service, together with the boyar children, stanitsa heads and stanitsa residents, pronounced a verdict (decision).

The day of the adoption of the “Boyar verdict on the village and guard service” can rightfully be made a holiday date for Russian border guards.

Instructions were developed for the villages, distant and nearby watchmen: “From which city to which tract it is more convenient and profitable for a village resident to travel and which watchmen and from which cities and how many people to place guards on which.”

Careful paintings of the Donetsk, Putivl, Rylsky, Meshchersky and other watchmen, for example, looked like this: “1st watchman up Oleshanki Udtsky, and move as a watchman to the right on the Muravskaya Highway to Merla to Diakovo fort twenty miles... and run with the news from that watchman with a watchman to Rylesk by a straight road, between Pela and Vorskla.”

After discovering the enemy army, the village and guard heads (chiefs) were supposed to send messengers with news to nearby cities, for transmission along the chain, and themselves to follow the sakmas, that is, the tracks of the enemies.

The nature of the readiness of the border guards was also asked. “And stand as a watchman on guards from the horses without being eaten, changing, and ride through the tracts, changing to the right and to the left, two people at a time, according to the instructions that the governors will give them.”

Measures were taken for covert movement and location on the ground. In particular, it was prescribed not to cook food several times in one place, not to spend the night or take shelter during the day in the same place.

Many of the former guards were replaced by new ones, in accordance with the changes in the Crimean Tatar “routes,” and the places where the villagers were supposed to meet with each other were determined.

The lines of the Donetsk, Rylsky, Putivl guards were strongly pushed forward, to the south, so that now they captured the entire course of the Vorskla to the Dnieper, reached the Samara River, from there they stretched to the Don, to the mouth of the Long Well.

The sentence obliged the children of the boyars, Putivl and Rylsky to serve on the Donetsk guards, in view of the special importance of this line for the protection of Rus' from the Crimean Tatars and Nogais. “And serve from estates and township lands, and from a cash salary, and which lands near the townships in Putivl and Rylesku, and make up those lands with a sentence.”

The Putivl local Sevryuk residents were no longer hired for responsible service due to their negligence.

The verdict of 1571 also provided for the provision of overpaid servicemen. “And if the guards do not have good horses, the governors and the heads of the guards will have good horses, so that the horses they can ride on guard duty will be fearless.”

The watchmen's service was divided into three articles (watches), each of which lasted 6 weeks.

The verdict made it impossible to shift responsibility to the “subcontractors.” “What if the heads or the guards don’t come to them soon, and drive along the sakma yourself, as ordered, without hesitating, and don’t wait for the heads and the guards.”

Special officials appeared - standing heads to control posts and patrols. They themselves sent out villages consisting of children of boyars and city Cossacks.

I will mention only one of the standing heads, Shatsky, who stood on the Don on the “Nogai side”, in Vezhki, above Medveditsa and Khopr. One village from him crossed the Don, went to the upper reaches of the Aidar, a two-day journey, the other - to the mouth of Balykley, a distance of 4 days of travel. The Shatsky head had 120 children of boyars, service Cossacks, Tatars and Mordovians.

By the way, in the midst of the reorganization of the border service, in the summer of 1571, the infamous raid on Moscow by Khan Devlet-Girey occurred, which is why Tyufyakin did not have time to complete his inspection of the guards. However, the reorganized border service soon brought enormous benefits.

In October 1571, preventing the raid, the steppe was scorched, according to instructions, by village troops sent from nine outlying cities.

And during the new campaign of the 120,000-strong Crimean-Turkish horde against Rus' in the summer of 1572, its movement was detected in advance.

Russian border guards met the Crimeans on the Oka. The khan himself admitted in a letter to the Russian Tsar dated August 23 that Russian fortifications surrounded by a moat were waiting for him on the Shore.

The Moscow government managed to transfer forces to the area of ​​advance of the Crimean army in time and inflicted a severe defeat on the enemy in the epoch-making battle of Molodi, which lasted from July 29 to August 2.

Since 1573, it was established that the villages, when meeting, would certainly exchange the information they had collected, and the heads would check whether the villagers had reached the tracts assigned to them.

In February 1574, Nikita Yuryev became the head of the guard service, replacing the deceased Vorotynsky (Kurbsky’s reports that the old prince died from the consequences of torture are not confirmed by any other sources). This year new changes were made to the guard service.

Yuryev laid out the traveling routes of the villagers in such a way that they covered all the old and new routes of the Crimeans and constantly communicated with each other.

Yuryev removed the guards who had become famous among the steppe inhabitants, while others, for example, at the confluence of the Ubla and the Donets, he reinforced with boyar children. He also increased the salaries of servants, “so that people would not be endless and for the benefit of the Sovereign’s cause they would have good horses.” The standing head of the Sejm was transferred here.

In 1575, a fortification was erected on Sosna at the confluence of the Livna, and governor Mikhail Karpov was sent there. The villagers' patrols went further and further into the steppe.

After meetings with village residents, leaders and guards in 1576, a new “adjustment” of the border service took place.

For example, the village heads from the Don, from the mouth of the Tulucheya, were transferred to the mouth of Bogaty Zaton, because their former location became known to the Crimeans and Nogais. The previous rule to send watchmen to the steppe by April 1 was canceled and it was decided to correspond with the real beginning of spring.

At the Putivl and Rylsky guards they now had to serve the townspeople from Rylsk and Novgorod-Seversky for a monetary salary. On the Oryol, Novosilsky, Dedilovsky, Donkovsky, Epifansky, Shatsky and Ryazhsky - to the city Cossacks for a cash salary and land in the settlements. On Temnikovsky - to serving Tatars and Mordovians. On Alatyrsky - to serving Cossacks who are in the department of the Kazan Palace.

Demands were sent to Ukrainian governors and siege leaders - to communicate with each other as often as possible, with important information being brought to the attention of the Sovereign and the Discharge Order, including information about sending guards - who and when.

In 1577, the sovereign made new changes in the order of service. The governor was removed from the mouth of the Livna, since the Donetsk, Oskol and Don standing heads went into the steppe further than the Livna servicemen. The deadlines for sending villages were shortened so as not to cause “unnecessary languor” to the servicemen. Apparently, there was relative calm in the steppe at that time.

Due to the fact that governors sometimes sent people “thin and unarmed” to the “Polish” service, or even out of turn, the Rank began to deal with sending them to service.

To investigate the violations that had occurred, a survey of the “best people” was ordered, those who would not want to bend their hearts and risk their honest name.

What is interesting here is not the fact of possible abuses, but the fact that the authorities quickly find ways to prevent them.

In the detailed lists received by the Discharge, for each warrior all visits to service were shown, how many days he was on the road, for how long he appeared at the place assigned to him, who replaced him and when.

In 1578, the villages, expelled by the standing heads, moved even further to the south. The Putivlskys began to travel along the Orel to the Dnieper to the Dog's Bones, the Ryazanskys - to the Holy Mountains, and the Meshcherskys - down the Don to the Volga crossing, where the road from Crimea to Nogai passed.

The predatory Crimeans, of course, also did not yawn and laid new raid roads. In 1579, the enemy mastered the road running from the Kalmius River along the watershed of the Donets and Don.

Once again the villagers and standing heads gathered in Moscow. Based on the results of the discussion, Yuryev made a decision: to strengthen the forces of the standing heads on Oskol near the mouth of the Ubla and on the Don, near the mouth of Bogaty Zaton. Yuriev arranged the patrol routes in such a way that the new route of the Crimeans would also be under surveillance.

The stanitsa and guard service of nobles and boyar children on the southern outskirts did not exclude service close to home. So, the Putivites and Rylians still had to guard the Russian-Lithuanian border.

A new decree on the service of boyar children was made in 1580. Boyarin Yuriev and clerk Shchelkalov “sentenced” about the Putivl villages - not to take servicemen with estates of less than 100 quarters as riders, “leave those in the regiment”, only people were to be sent to the village service “horsed, young and old.”

The stanitsa service now fell only on people with the appropriate material capabilities.

In 1623, a new charter for the village guard service was issued. Now each village consisted of an ataman, 6 riders and 2 leaders - each had 2 horses and a arquebus. The village, reaching a certain tract, had to leave a “travel memory” there and, returning back, was obliged to meet another village that had come to replace it. The second village took the travel record left by the first and hid its own in a secluded place.

If the village noticed steppe inhabitants or their traces, then it dispatched a couple of people to report to the nearest governor, and the rest had to “check out the real news,” that is, continue monitoring. “So that all sorts of news would be known and military people would not come unknown and do no harm.”

Let's imagine the day of a village worker. It begins with a loaf of bread, quite stale, and a handful of oatmeal mixed with water. Now water the horses in the coastal reeds. The village guard notices a sign on the water. He knows how to read the book of steppes, ravines, rivers, forests. Her writing is a hoof print in the dust, crumpled grass, a broken branch, human excretions, food debris, horse “apples”... Horse hair floats on the water. This means that someone is crossing the river upstream.

One village resident remains with the horses, the other two walk through the reed thickets, the bottom silt gripping their legs. Horses snoring can be heard not far from the shore. The villagers go neck-deep into the water, freeze, and barely 40 fathoms away from them a horde is crossing the river. A horsetail decorated with a horse's tail is visible - the Murza is surrounded by warriors, flat helmets and bekhterets dimly reflect the dawn rays. Each Horde member, sitting on a squat but lively horse, also leads a pack horse, on which there are coils of rope, saddle baskets, bags - everything is ready for the “harvest.” The fragile hands of girls will be tied with this rope, and children torn from the hands of howling mothers will be thrown into saddle baskets. The smell of unwashed bodies can be heard from the Horde. Long-moustached people in short robes and white felt caps lead camels loaded with cannon barrels - these are the soldiers of the Sultan of Tours, the Janissaries. The huge wheels of the cart, loaded with cannonballs and gunpowder, creak. “Chabuk, olan uzun sachly,” the infidels are clearly in a hurry. In the distance, on the right high bank, dust swirls, approaching the crossing it is dark, no less.

The cold penetrates to the bones, it is difficult to stop the chattering of teeth. Someone enters the water, very close, urinates, then drinks. One of the stanitsa’s hands rests on the infidel’s mouth, the other guides the blade of a knife under his beard. The enemy, gurgling, lies on his back and, releasing pink bubbles, begins to slowly sink into the water.

“Kalga is coming, with three darknesses with him,” his partner whispers. “It’s time to go back.”

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